Tag Archives: frugality

Honestly, I’ve always avoided using the grill, designating those summer evenings of tasty charred meals to nights when my husband is available to man the station. I’m not sure why, but the grill has always intimidated me. Maybe it’s because I’ve pretty much burned to oblivion everything I’ve ever grilled.

Regardless of my hang-ups, this week I’m instituting a change in my mentality. You’ll notice a grill-heavy menu, which I will be cooking ALL. BY. MYSELF. (Note to my husband, since I know you’re reading this Mike: If I ask you to take over, say NO).

I need to get over this redonkulous fear of the grill, and reclaim the mighty art of grilling from all those manly-men I’ve relied on all these years to produce my perfectly fire-singed morsels of delight. I mean seriously, if I can kick ass in the kitchen, I can certainly do alright cooking outdoors.

And just in case, I’ll have the eight closest chinese takeout restaurants on speed dial. No joke.

Do you cook on the grill? If you do, what’s your favorite grilled meal to make? Share with us in the comments section below!

On a side note, we’ll be going into the city on Tuesday because my husband is attending the New York Stock Exchange closing bell ceremony. He’ll be there to celebrate Foot Locker Inc’s 100th year of trading on the NYSE. How awesome/exciting/cool/exciting is that?!? What’s even more exciting is the prospect of finagling a tasty meal from the Halal cart while we’re there. Omnomnom.

Okay, so this isn’t a food-related picture. But it *is* a picture (that I sort of love) of my husband Mike and I. And I’m putting it up because I can. Also, because we celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary last Wednesday. Yay for that!

What’s on your menu plan this week?Share in the comments section below! If you blog your own menu plan, leave a link so we can check it out. And if you want information on how to plan a weekly menu, click HERE.

I’ve been getting along just fine for the past half-dozen years doing the hand washing thaaang. Now that we’re in our new place though, I’ve been reintroduced to the water gulping, electricity sucking monster that is the dishwasher. I had one in the past, but for the life of me I can’t really remember actually using it (although at the time we didn’t have dirty dish mass-producing children yet, so that’s probably why). Being the Frugal McDougal that I am, I’m really struggling with the whole hand washing vs. dishwasher thing.

Now I’ll admit, I haven’t yet googled the heck out of the issue (like I usually do), I figured someone out there in the vast world of interwebs who reads my posts might have some good, relevant information taking up brainspace in their noggin that they’d be willing to share.

So I’m reaching out to you, my wonderful, amazing, beautiful, amazing, smart, funny, amazing readers:What do you think of hand washing dishes vs. tossing them in the dishwasher? Is one option greener/cleaner/more economical than the other? What’s your personal dish washing preference?

What’s on your menu plan this week?Share in the comments section below! If you blog your own menu plan, leave a link so we can check it out. And if you want information on how to plan a weekly menu, click HERE.

With all the packing, moving, unpacking and trying to figure out how to maintain the fragile balance of harmony in our new home (aka trying to return my kids to their normally scheduled programming of minimal meltdowns), l totally fell off the blogging wagon this past month. Oh and also, I haven’t been able to stick to a menu plan for the life of me during all of this and have blown my grocery budget every week.

AAAAAH THE CHAOS!!! (insert maniacal laughter, hair pulling and running in circles here) It’s been craziness, I tell you. I blame it on the cereal.

Now I’m ready to iron out the wrinkles and get back into a groove of quasi-normalcy, starting with my return to the ever-reliable menu plan. Baby steps.

New Kitchen Love: I totally heart my new kitchen. Notice all that sunlight, openness and counter space. Ohhhh the counter space! (There’s even MORE counter space that you can’t even see from this angle. It’s madness.)

What’s on your menu plan this week?Share in the comments section below! If you blog your own menu plan, leave a link so we can check it out. And if you want information on how to plan a weekly menu, click HERE.

We’re moving this weekend. Between me getting sick with a case of whoknowswhat (I’d guess a mutant cold/flu hybrid) and trying to pack while the kids are home and my husband is at work, this week is a whirlwind of crazy. My menu plan is equally crazy, as I try to use up what we have in the fridge so I don’t have to haul it with us. The only grocery shopping I did this week was a loaf of bread and some cereal.

Let’s talk about the cereal. I never ever buy cereal, unless I’m too sick to make meals, getting ready to move, or having a moment of crazy – all three of which happen to fit the bill this week. I’m not anti-cereal, I just happen to think that oatmeal or eggs offer us more nutritious whole food for our money. While I don’t shop organically and can’t afford to frolic through the aisles of our local Whole Foods Market, I try to make the best decisions for feeding my family on our budget. Part of the decision for me includes avoiding many processed foods and the bucketfuls of added sugar my kids consume with cereal (which subsequently results in epic meltdowns or scraping bodies off the ceiling of our apartment). I know that from-scratch cooking isn’t exactly everyone’s bag, but I don’t have an excuse not to take the extra five minutes each morning to scramble an egg or simmer oats on the stove. This week though, I barely have the time to sit and type out this blog post… so cereal it is!

PS- Just to make it clear, this really isn’t any kind of cereal-hater post. If you’re an on-the-go person with no time to make breakfast or just prefer the taste or convenience of cereal or whatever, I can dig it. I feel the need to fully disclose the fact that, were it not for being so conscious of what I shovel into my children’s bellies and where our hard earned dollars are going, I’d probably be gorging an entire box of Lucky Charms each morning for breakfast. No joke. I lurve me some cereal.

What do you usually eat for breakfast? Share with us in the comments section below!

What’s on your menu plan this week?Share in the comments section below! If you blog your own menu plan, leave a link so we can check it out. And if you want information on how to plan a weekly menu, click HERE.

The weather is getting warmer. Do you know what that means? I’m officially in summer food brainstorming mode. Which means grilling/picnicing/camping-friendly dishes will be infiltrating my menu plan slowly and inconspicuously for the next few weeks, building up to a hostile takeover sometime in the month of May. Get ready because once we move(!!!) and get our grill set up, it’ll be on like Donkey Kong.

What’s on your menu plan this week?Share in the comments section below! If you blog your own menu plan, leave a link so we can check it out. And if you want information on how to plan a weekly menu, click HERE.

Yesterday was Easter. Our morning consisted of being particularly lazy, and then making these cute little Rice Krispy Easter egg treats inspired by a recipe I found on Pinterest:

Homemade Rice Krispy Easter Egg Treats: yep, these were awesome.

Afterwards we polished up and headed over to my Gramma’s to hang out with my awesome family and eat copious amounts (that is an understatement) of good food. What is it about holidays that causes so much overeating to take place? The amount of food I ate just for dinner yesterday is comparable to how much food I might consume over the course of 24 hours on a normal day. Oy.

This morning as I reluctantly scribbled down a meal plan I wanted to think of anything but food, as I now have a foodbaby AND a food hangover.

From now on I will refer to Easter as “Feaster”, a term my mom’s friend Beth threw out there as I complained of my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad too-much-food-blahs this morning on Facebook. Thank goodness there are months of recuperating time between large food holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, (F)Easter and the 4th of July. Otherwise my stomach would be curled up crying in a corner somewhere right now. Time to eat a lot of salad, dig out the 30 Day Shred dvd and hop on that wagon again. Gah!

More food: adorable cookies made by my cousins!

How do you recover from holiday overeating? Share with us in the comments section below!

What’s on your menu plan this week?Share in the comments section below! If you blog your own menu plan, leave a link so we can check it out. And if you want information on how to plan a weekly menu, click HERE.

Oh hi there. I knew there was something I forgot to do this week. DERP.

Anyways, this week has been uber-busy with apartment hunting (found a place!), lice-checking the kids, pre-move decluttering, catching up with besties and getting ready for my little lady’s big 0-4 birthday. I’m not sure how I managed to get this far without a menu plan, but I guess every once in awhile even the awesomest (not a word) of homemakers fudge things up. This is my week. With all the chaos I’m pretty sure we’ve eaten greasy, gross road food more times than I realize. Whoops.

(FYI: This is NOT what I originally had planned for meals this week. The following is what happens when I wing it and fly by the seat of my pants. Proof that menu planning is effective when properly executed!)

experimental cauliflower crust veggie pizza (not sure where we went wrong, but this was a big ol’ soggy crusted FAIL)

Thursday

turkey-oat meatball subs

salad

Friday

pasta with butter and parmesan

green beans

Saturday (Emma’s Birthday!!)

homemade pizza

salad

Sunday (Easter!!)

Dinner at my Gramma’s

What’s on your menu plan this week?Share in the comments section below! If you blog your own menu plan, leave a link so we can check it out. And if you want information on how to plan a weekly menu, click HERE.